Data
Caption: Lieutenant Commander Data in 2364 Description: Soong-type android Discovered: 2338 Destroyed: 2379 Actor: Brent Spiner Caption: Lieutenant Commander Data in 2379 Lieutenant Commander Data was a Soong-type android, the first and only such being to ever enter Starfleet. Career He was found on the planet Omicron Theta by the USS Tripoli in 2338, after the Crystalline Entity destroyed the entire colony on the planet. (TNG: "Datalore") After an assignment on the USS Trieste, Data served as operations/science officer and second officer onboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) from 2364 until that ship's destruction in 2371. He served onbaord the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) from the ship's launch in 2372 until his death in 2379 while saving the Enterprise from the Scimitar, a Reman superweapon. ("Star Trek: Nemesis") Family Although he is an android, Data considers himself to have a family, including: * Father: Noonien Soong * Mother: Juliana Soong * Brother: Lore (TNG: "Datalore") * Brother: B-4 ("Star Trek: Nemesis") * Daughter: Lal (TNG: "The Offspring") Androidal Development Data was a major influence in the quest to grant androids sentience. Data was ordered by Commander Bruce Maddox to submit to an untested procedure that Maddox believed would grant him a greater understanding of the technology behind Data's positronic brain. Data studied Maddox's proposal and found it to be flawed, prompting Maddox to assert his authority and order Data to submit. Data refused and resigned from Starfleet, but Maddox challenged his right to do so, claiming that Data was property, not a sentient lifeform, a position supported by the Captain Phillipa Louvois of the Judge Advocate General's office. Captain Jean-Luc Picard challenged this position, stating that Data currently represented an entire race and duplicating him for the purposes of enforced labour constituted slavery. Louvois agreed with Picard's standpoint and ruled that Data was a sentient being with full rights under Federation law (TNG "The Measure of a Man"). Data, however, continued to communicate with Commander Maddox, assisting him in his work (TNG "Data's Day"). Data wished to become more human in his behavior, often with unfortunate results. His attempts at humor were not successful. One particularily hard aspect of human behavior was romance and love. He attempted to have a relationship with Jenna D'Sora, but it didn't last long. :Data was programmed with several pleasing techniques and is "fully functional". Data had a sexual relationship with Tasha Yar during the influence of Psi 2000 virus ''(TNG: "The Naked Now"). This was the case also in 2373, when the Borg Queen seduced him. ("Star Trek: First Contact")'' He began using an emotion chip in 2371, one year after he acquired it from his brother Lore. (TNG "Brothers", TNG "Descent, Part II") At first, he had some difficulties adjusting to the onslaught of emotions, but he eventually learned to control them. After the initial adjustment period, he was able to turn the chip on and off, and later to remove it completely. References * Star Trek: Nemesis * Star Trek: Insurrection * Star Trek: First Contact * Star Trek: Generations * TNG "Brothers" * TNG "Descent, Part II Inconsistencies In "Encounter at Farpoint," Data said that he graduated in the Starfleet Academy Class of '76. Some fans have used this as evidence for different dating schemes for Star Trek: The Next Generation, however, it is more likely an error, as the exact setting had not been firmly nailed down when the script was written. At the alternative timeline created by Q (All Good Things...", Data was a professor at Cambridge university and lived at Isaac Newton's house with a housekeeper and several cats. He had also dyed part of his hair grey, as he thought it made him look older.